Monday, March 6, 2017

Marbled Swirled Mint Cupcakes

My middle son has been baking up cupcakes ever since watching Cupcake Wars several weeks ago.

He's getting quite good and is pushing us both to try new things in the kitchen. A few weeks ago he decided he wanted to make mint cupcakes but since he doesn't like chocolate he wanted to make vanilla ones.

He also wanted to make the batter swirled; half white/ half- green.

We found a white cake recipe to follow and added 2 tsp. mint extract to it. We then divided the batter into two bowls and used gel food coloring (found in the cake decorating section of our local craft store) to tint one bowl green.

We slowly mixed the white batter back in with the green batter making sure to keep them from mixing thoroughly.

He used a large scoop from Pampered Chef to fill each paper cup 3/4 of the way full and then baked them in the oven for 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center came out clean.

We let them cool completely at room temperature and mixed up a batch of white buttercream frosting. He also added 2 tsp. of mint extract to the frosting.

We broke open one of the cupcakes to see what they had cooked up to look like and to taste them and make sure we didn't find them too minty.

They were perfect and he began to frost them all; topping them off with an Andes Thin Mint.

They were just perfect for St. Patrick's Day but there was quite a bit of controversy over the mint frosting. Alec just loved his minty cupcakes but my other sons and husbands argued that they were a bit too minty.

Perhaps we should have stuck with plain buttercream frosting since we had all loved the plain cupcakes.

6 comments
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These look so yummy. I am super impressed by your son's baking skills. My oldest son is now 15, and he loves to bake. I defintitely encourage it; I usually don't mind being the taste-tester. ;) Thank you so much for sharing at My Busy Beehives #beeparty. I hope you come and link up next week, too!

Your son can come over and bake for us any time! Vanilla and mint are not often put together, but they are actually a fantastic combination. I love how creative this is. Thanks so much for sharing at the #happynowlinkup!